Your opinions and advice please

Hi Every one,
a few weeks ago i introduced myself, as having a bereaved bunny girl Tia and looking/getting her a neutered male mate. Well i now have her mate, who has been with me since Friday. He and Tia haven't yet met 'face to face' as it were, but both hutches are in the same run, and they are taking turns to play out while the other watches, smelling each others scent, and leaving theirs for the other. Tia has even been seen to be rolling in his scents! Tia has introduced herself through the wire of Tor's (her new man) door and they seem ok with each other. she hasn't shown any sign of aggression, just more curiosity as to who and what he is doing in her run, and seems to have actually become a little calmer towards me (she has always been a little shy and standoffish, but never aggressive) He of course thinks she is amazing and gets very excited when he sees her!

So 2 questions, firstly, at what point do you think i should introduce them in person, face to face? They seem ok although obviously it might be a little different when there is no barrier.

Secondly, Tia is approx 3 years old and unneutered, Tor was neutered 3 weeks ago. When do you think he will be 'clear' to go with Tia without the worry of any 'accidents'

What do you think?

The general advice is males can still be fertile up to 6 weeks after neutering.

Are you not having your female spayed? Bonding could be far easier if they are both done and given time to let their hormones calm down.

Also, do you know that studies show that 80% of female rabbits will get uterine cancer if not spayed? 4% of unneutered does have it at age 2-3 and then it jumps up to a whopping 80% by age 5-6

That's scary figures

I agree - you should definitely have Tia spayed. Not only for her health, but also to make the bonding easier as the hormones won't be flying around.

I am working on the basis she isnt neutered, but she came form the RSPCA. the branch i got her from neuter 'some' rabbits and don't seem to be able to tell me if she would have been one or not.

That is crazy!! You would think they'd know whether they'd spayed her or not

(I'm not rolling my eyes at you.)

As far as I'm aware, the RSPCA spay/neuter all animals that they re-home. However, your vet should be able to tell you if she's had it done.

Patches hormones took nearly 3 months to calm down following his neutering - this was seen by his constant spraying at Myrtle and us whenever he got excited.

I agree with the others that the bonding process should be easier without excessive hormones affecting them.

All the best for when they do get the barriers removed!

freecycle_rabbit wrote:I am working on the basis she isnt neutered, but she came form the RSPCA. the branch i got her from neuter 'some' rabbits and don't seem to be able to tell me if she would have been one or not.

If she was mine I'd be inclined to ask the vet. I don't think they can tell for sure from a scan but if she was otherwise healthy I'd be willing to put her through exploratory surgery to check rather than run the very high risk of uterine cancer.

Father Jack wrote:As far as I'm aware, the RSPCA spay/neuter all animals that they re-home. However, your vet should be able to tell you if she's had it done.

No, individual branches have different policies.

Getting Tia spayed can give her a healthy and hopefully very long happy life.
I learned this lesson the hard way.

Un-neutered does are almost guaranteed to get tumours so checking whether she has been done is really important. It will also help smooth the bond. You need to wait out he 6 weeks to make sure Tor is not still fertile. I would also advise that you need to wait until the 2 buns are not overly interested in each other. An excited reaction tends to mean there would be a scrap if they were in each others' space. Un-neutered does are particularly renowned for territorial behaviour.

Once their both spayed and time has passed for them to no longer be fertile, I would say a area free from both their scents, so its neutral territory, using a puppy pen or maybe a room in your house, bring them together that way, but have extra pair of hands, garden gloves (they can give a nasty bite) and a water spray bottle to break up any fights, rather than the run, it might make it a quicker bonding process. Having her spayed will also calm her down as well as help prevent cancer.

Thank you all for your replies. Until i heard from you i wasn't aware the health benefits of neutering females. Until now it has only ever been a thing you would have done to prevent babies, and obviously i would have expected it to calm the hormones down, and i have known a few stroppy females....

Tia and Tor are a lot calmer towards each other now, they both seem quite accepting of the other, the initial excitement has died down. They seem to understand they don't run together, and have to take turns. Yesterday, while Tia was out, i put Tor in her hutch, leaving his open for her to explore - but she didn't bother. Today, i put her in his hutch, while he was out, and he was running in and out of hers lol!
Tor is a lot calmer in himself already, probably his hormones beginning to work their way through and calm down and also possibly now he has a life, and more to think about and is getting used to me he doesn't need to be so uptight.

We tried that once with bella & charlie, he smelt her and went bezerk "who has been in my run" so they were bonding gradually in the kitchen for few weeks was ready to move to the next step then sadly lost her.

When I was bonding Willow and Mojo I swapped them into each other's pens every day and it definitely helped a bit. Not so fun having to clean up the millions of scented poops deposited everywhere though

hi everyone,
hope you and your bunnies all had good Christmas.
with regards to Tia being neutererd i finally found out from the R.S.P.C.A that she was so that was good.
yesterday as i had a quiet day i introduced Tia and Tor in the flesh, barriers down, i had a little neutral meeting pen made up so if any arguments broke out i could grab one of them.
it went well, Tia immediately dropped to the ground with her tail up, and Tor needed no second bidding and was happy to oblige, several times lol!he is a lot smaller than her and the only times she got cross were when he sat on her head.
They spent the rest of the day together and today too. yesterday afternoon when i went to put them to bed, i was expecting Tia to go to her hutch and Tor to follow, but she went straight past hers and into his!
They seem ok together and he worships her, and she seems to enjoy his company, but he does seem to pester her for mating more than she seems to want. i know it is early days yet, but will this calm down when they get more used to each other?

Hi Hun, sounds like things are going brilliantly!

The "mating" is about him trying to be the dominant bun, and hopefully will get better .

It's really lovely to hear you have given a rescue bun a lovely home :-)

Hello! Hope you had a nice Christmas!

I'm so pleased you managed to find out for definite that Tia is spayed!

It sounds like the bonding is going well, but I know nothing about bonding, so I'll leave the advice to someone else

As long as they calm down in time. When Tia was with Aphrodite they used to sit cuddled up together all the time. I am hoping she will form that sort of bond with Tor.
It doesn't seem to be all the time, but when he wants it he wants it, and Tia makes little squeaky grunty noises and pretends to protest and sometimes runs off, others gives in.

Hi, hope you had a nice Christmas!

Glad to hear Tia is spayed, and it sounds as if her bonding with Tor is going along the right lines

I don't know too much about bonding, but I did bond my two. The humping is a dominance thing and in my experience should die down, and my Willow was and still is very grunty and vocal around Mojo. It had me stressed at first but Cheryl on here assured me it is perfectly normal and many does are like it - so Tia might just be a loud bun bun!

Thank you, it is quite stressful to hear her making those noises, but as long as it is normal then i will cope.
As i say, she protests, loudly, but doesn't seem quite as bothered as she says she is, but then other times she tries to get away and he pursues her. I've just been out to shut them up for the night, and give treats. Tor cam out of the bedroom first, then went to get Tia. she came out of the bedroom, making a noise, Tor followed her, and she grunted and went back into the bedroom, again followed by Tor, where more noise was made accompanied by a bit of thumping.
She doesn't seem to hate him, she chose to go to his hutch, and seems to like his company, so hopefully they will settle down.

Awwwww. Sounds like things are going well with them. Great to learn Tia was already spayed too!

Hope you had a nice christmas too love. I am pleased to hear this, it is so nice when they eventually bond, it makes us feel all warm inside.

Hugs

JO xx